And he married his college sweetheart, Mary Lee Griffith.
Kasich quickly shifted to the political side of the Ohio Statehouse and served as an aide to state Sen. Buz Lukens, whose own political career ended in 1990 over a sex scandal. But settling in as a senate staffer wasn’t Kasich’s style.
In 1978, he jumped from the back office of politics to the front seat when ran a vigorous door-to-door campaign and he beat incumbent Robert O'Shaughnessy for state senate. At the time he was the youngest Ohioan ever elected to the state senate. He was 26.
In 1980, Kasich and Griffith divorced.
By 1982, in a Congressional race, Kasich beat another incumbent politico, Democrat Bob Shamansky. (Shamansky was a well-respected lawyer who committed suicide in 2011 at age 84, stunning his close friends and family members.)
While Shamansky served just one term in Congress, Kasich settled in for an 18-year stretch.
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